The Roof
by Lololova
Summary: A tad inspired by the song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol but it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted. So, I hope you enjoy but if not I'm sorry I took your time. Well, last one shot of the year, HAPPY NEW YEAR!


_A tad inspired by the song Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol but it didn't quite turn out the way I wanted. So, I hope you enjoy but if not I'm sorry I took your time. Well, last one shot of the year, **HAPPY NEW YEAR!**_

* * *

Beckett knocks on the door of his loft, hoping he's still home, hoping he didn't decide to make a trip out of the city for the occasion. _She needed to say she was sorry_. _She hadn't meant it_. She braced herself when the locks turned and got ready to be strong enough to make sure he'd listen to her.

"Oh," she let out when the young redhead opened the door instead of the man she wanted to talk with.

The girl sighed heavily and nodded upwards. "He's on the roof."

The door closed again and Beckett stood there, dumbfounded. _The roof?_ _Since when did he get up on the roof?_ The panic suddenly raised in her when she started thinking about what could go wrong with people being up on the roof. _But his daughter wasn't afraid_. In fact she'd seemed pretty relaxed about it. So, _what was he doing on the roof?_ She steered her feet towards the elevator, still determined to speak with the writer. She hadn't meant to snap at him the way she had, hadn't meant to tell him she wanted nothing to do with him. She was just _so mad_ at Josh and it had ended badly and _why had Castle been there afterwards?!_ She'd _thought_ he would keep himself away today. And he'd just given her a coffee with a smile on his face and she'd snapped.

"Why did I snap?" she breathed out in irritation as she put her face in her hands, waiting for the elevator to stop on the last floor.

As soon as the doors opened she took a deep breath and exited, took the last few steps of a small staircase with double-steps to reach the door to the roof faster. Opening the door she suddenly slowed down, her hands sweating at the nerves for facing him.

 _"You are so goddamn annoying Castle, just go home! Leave me alone. You don't need to follow my every move like a lost little puppy. Not for a stupid_ book _. Go."_

She had really no clue where it had come from. _Or perhaps she did_. It must've been what Josh had said.

 _"You were never in this Kate. You were always with_ him _, no matter what you were always with_ him _. You gotta wake the hell up."_

He'd walked away then, not even given her a chance to answer. But it was clear they were over and she couldn't have felt more relieved to be free from the asshole who thought he knew her so well. He'd always brought up the writer whenever something weren't right according to him. He even brought him up after they had sex! What the hell was even up with that?!

Kate shook her head, tried to get free of the thoughts of her ex-boyfriend, she needed to focus on finding the writer and tell him she was sorry. They'd grown so close lately and she didn't want one of her best friends to think she didn't want him in her life.

 _"Friendship? No, no girl. What you two have is_ not _a friendship. What you and I have, is a friendship. What you and Castle have is... something else."_

Kate bit her lip, Lanie might've had a point. But... _Castle?_ Kate got completely cut off guard when she witnessed the sight in front of her. The man was lying on his back facing the stars staring to wake up above him. As she approached him slowly she could see he had his eyes closed and wondered for a second if he was unconscious, _maybe he'd fallen?_

"Castle?" she asked gently and came to a stop beside him, hovering over him as she prepared her body for giving him any sort of help.

"Hm?" he popped one of his eyes open and grunted. "Beckett." He sighed closing his eye again. "What do you want? I left you alone, just like you wanted."

He sounded... _had he been crying?_ "About that, I'm sorry." His forehead wrinkled and she bit her lip again, already certain she would abuse her lower lip to bleeding before the night was over. "I just broke up with Josh, you caught me at a bad time and I didn't mean it. I don't want you out of my life." The words rushed out before she could stop them. _Might've been for the best_ , she couldn't have found a better way to say them anyway.

His blues opened and she looked away, her hand making its way into her hair as she scratched her head. "You two broke up?" he asked, his voice gentle and she nodded. "I-why?"

She sighed and sat down beside the writer who was still lying on the ground while his gaze followed her every move. "I really liked him but..." she bit her lip, thinking back at all the arguments revolving her commitment and the way she constantly chose the writer over her boyfriend. "We just weren't a match," she said while shrugging her shoulders and she saw something sparkle in his blues. _Hope?_

"I'm sorry," he said but she could sense he wasn't sorry at all. They went silent for a while, none of them really knowing what else to do or say. Eventually, as normally, Castle couldn't keep his mouth shut anymore. "Do you-uh... wanna lie here for a few minutes? I always come here whenever I need to think."

Kate didn't think long before smiling at his gesture. "Yeah, thanks." Lying down wasn't as bad as she'd thought it would be. It was actually pretty comfortable even though the ground was hard, felt like her back finally got stretched out after all the hard work she'd done lately. Maybe that had been part of the problem too. She was always working and never really taking time to figure out what she really wanted, what she _felt_. Josh had been right to question her relationship with her shadow, because when she tried to think of it from his perspective she could see why he thought there was more.

Castle felt his body slowly relax as the time passed. When he'd first seen it was Kate he'd tried his best to shut out all of the emotions stifling inside him, had been glad his tears had run out only minutes before. There was no way he'd want her to know she'd made him cry. The thought of not seeing her had torn him apart, especially since she had been so harsh when she told him she wanted nothing to do with him, that she never did. Having her saying his books were stupid had been the last thing he could take before he'd left her alone that morning. He'd quickly put down the coffee on her desk before retreated to the elevator with her words ringing in his head. His eyes had been filled with water ever since, with a small break from when he found Alexis at home and had to tell her everything that happened before retreating to the roof. Alexis had displayed the irritation she felt towards the detective but he'd managed to decrease it some before heading out.

Then it had all went downhill the second he got to the roof, his eyes watering up with no indication of ever drying again. He'd laid down in the middle of the ground and watched as the sky turned from blue to pink to almost black before his tears ran out. _Thank god they had run out when they did_. He wasn't sure what had happened though. Kate was here. _Here_. With _him_. And she'd told him she wasn't together with Josh anymore. He couldn't help but wonder what had happened, what could've led to her snapping at him the way she did. It wasn't like he was the reason they'd broken up! Or was he? He was just about to ask, about to open his mouth and speak before thinking, when he turned his head only to see tears rolling down her cheeks, her eyes being closed.

"Beckett? What's wrong?" he couldn't have hidden the worry no matter how hard he'd tried to. When she didn't answer, just simply clenched her eyes firmly shut he raised onto his elbow in order to get a better look at her. _Was she hurt?_ His hand moved to touch her but stayed hovering above her since _they don't touch_. "Kate?" His tone was more desperate now and he cursed himself for not being able to keep it together.

Kate shook her head, not wanting to talk, not wanting to do anything but just lay there, right next to him and let it all out.

 _"You're in love with him, Kate. Don't you try deny it!"_ Josh had yelled at her at one point. _"You can't seriously believe you would chose to have a civilian as a partner otherwise."_ And she'd denied it, like usual. He was her partner simply because he'd proven himself worthy, helpful even.

But the more she thought about all the fights, along with all the nights she'd spent listening to Lanie's babbling, she started to think that maybe, _just maybe_ , there were some truth behind those words. He was a great partner, that _is_ why she kept him in the precinct, but ever since he joined their small team she'd had a lot more fun than she did before. He made her feel so much more relaxed than anyone had ever managed. He was the only one who had managed to drag her out of her workaholic-like behavior after her mom's death. He cheered her up every morning with a cup of coffee.

She flinched when she felt fingers stroking her cheek, and she suddenly realized she was crying. Hadn't realized that must've been the reason he said her name in the first place. Taking in a deep breath she opened her eyes and looked straight into his blues, consisting of a concern that scared her more than a criminal with a gun.

"Hey? You okay?" he said with a low voice and she nodded.

"I'm fine, I just..." she clenched her eyes shut and raised her hand to wipe away her tears. "Can we lay here for a few more minutes? In silence?" she asked and opened her eyes to see him searching in her hazels for anything that could give him a clue as to what was going on.

"Okay," he whispered eventually and laid back down again.

Carefully Kate moved her hand to snatch his between them, intertwining their fingers as slowly as she could muster in order to let him pull away if he wanted to. He didn't. Then they let the silence take over, observing the stars as they appeared one after one on the now very dark sky, a sky that slowly turned completely black.

* * *

Castle heard the second Kate fell asleep, her breathing turned so deep and peaceful he couldn't find it in himself to wake her. He laid there with his head turned in order to watch her instead of the stars. He'd seen them a thousand times, but seeing her? Like this? At peace? He wondered if he'd ever see something more beautiful again. _She_ was beautiful. And they were holding hands. _Since when do they hold hands?_ He didn't know what to do, what he _did know_ was that he didn't want to risk wake her up, didn't want to lose the contact they were sharing in that moment. As he observed and tried to memorize every line in her face he heard the door of the roof open and close and hoped it wasn't anyone outside his family coming up.

"Dad?" Alexis's voice sounded a bit confused and he looked up to see her tiptoe her way towards them. "Is she...?"

"Yeah, she'd asleep," he answered in a whisper and his daughter nodded.

"Dinner's ready and I-ah, by the look on her face when she got here I made some extra. She looked like she wanted to be here for a while."

Alexis had been angry at the detective when she heard she had kicked her father out as if he was nothing. But as the day went by she wondered what had triggered the outburst that her father had received. It wasn't like detective Kate Beckett to lose her cool like that, not even with her father when he was being silly. And so, when the detective came around an hour ago with a look of determination, with a hint of regret, Alexis decided to give her the benefit of the doubt. She hadn't exactly been polite to the woman when she answered the door, but instead of simply stating her father was out and not there she _had_ referred the detective to the roof, where she knew she'd find her father. Almost immediately after closing the door on the woman she regretted not inviting her in instead, but decided that part was up to her father and how much the detective actually wanted to be there. She'd decided it was for the best to make a little more dinner than usual though, just in case everything worked out like she hoped it would.

"Thanks, we'll be right down," her father whispered and she nodded with a small smile on her face.

His daughter turned around and walked back the same way she came and Castle turned a bit again in order to gently tug on Kate's hand, murmuring it was time for her to wake up again. He watched as her eyes started fluttering before she turned onto her side and he startled as she put her free hand on top of his chest while snuggling closer to him.

"I don't wanna," she mumbled and he couldn't help but laugh at that.

At the same time he couldn't help but feel a bit more concerned. _Since when is Kate so... open?_ What had made her cry and why was she snuggling into him?

"Hey, Kate? Dinner's done, we should get down before Alexis and mother start wondering why it's taking so long," he said low as he tried to carefully shake her shoulders into awareness.

"Huh?" she muttered and he met her eyes when they opened for real only to widen slightly as she started pulling away from him. "Oh, sorry."

"No, it's okay," he quickly tried to reassure her as he sat up with her. "How do you feel?"

Kate put her head in her hands and rubbed her eyes. _How did she feel?_ "Confused," she said eventually with a shrug of frustration. She moved her head to be able to look at him, seeing him observing her with gentle eyes.

"Is there anything I can help you with?" he asked and she bit her inner cheek.

"Just stay with me, at the precinct I mean," she added when his eyes widened. "I know I said some hurtful things this morning but-"

"Don't worry about that, it's already forgotten," he interrupted her and she smiled. His lips mirrored hers and he raised onto his feet before reaching down to give her his hand. "Come on, let's go eat."

She took his hand and let him help her up. It was quite obvious he was surprised when she kept holding his hand in hers while she started dragging him towards the door leading inside but she didn't comment on it. _Yes_ , she was confused. But there was one thing she was sure of after the small nap she'd gotten. Josh had been right. She was falling for the writer, and she wasn't going to deny it any longer. Maybe she wouldn't say it out loud just yet, but they would get there. _Eventually_. Now it was time to eat dinner with his family, and then they'd just see where it went.

 ** _THE END_**

* * *

 _ **A/N** :_ _I know, worst ending ever but I mostly just wanted to say: **HAPPY NEW YEAR ALL!**_


End file.
